Election notebook: Students get real-life experience as eligible voters

Thursday

Nov 8, 2012 at 12:01 AM

By the end of Election Day, Samantha Prince expected to stand in four voter lines, once in Middle Smithfield, once at each of the two polling places in Lehman Township and then at her home polling place.

By the end of Election Day, Samantha Prince expected to stand in four voter lines, once in Middle Smithfield, once at each of the two polling places in Lehman Township and then at her home polling place.

Prince is a social studies teacher at East Stroudsburg North High School. A few weeks ago, students who are 18 were given the opportunity in school to register to vote.

In total, 10 students registered, Prince said. Some students wished to vote on their own, or with family.

The rest boarded a school bus Tuesday and were taken to their home polling place.

Prince stood in line with each group of students as they waited to cast their vote for the first time. She didn't seem to mind spending the day in line.

"I don't care, as long as they vote," Prince said.

Last name start with A through H or Q through Z?

You were among the chosen ones who could move quickly through the line at the polling place at the Pike County complex in Blooming Grove.

The vast majority of voters names fell in the I-P range, leading to a wait of an hour and five minutes.

At both Lehman Township polling places, the firehouse on Sugar Mountain Road and the Lehman Municipal Building, drivers parked on both sides of the roads, creating a narrow one-way street with lots of traffic coming and going.

If a fire truck needed to leave, it would be chaos.

After similar traffic problems during the last presidential election, company board member Michele Kuna brought it to the attention of the Pike Board of Elections, and then went to township supervisors, asking for traffic control.

"We can't expect fire volunteers to take time off work to direct election traffic. The township should have more people to direct traffic," Kuna said.

A constable did direct traffic for a while, but then had to leave. The fire company ended up directing traffic at the Lehman building.

Kuna says more constables should have been called in.

"We are very upset about the inaction of government officials who are in charge of voting. We need to make sure this doesn't happen again," Kuna said.

The line in Lehman Township at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday was an hour to get into the warm building. Once inside, the voter line snaked around a rope maze. One woman with an infant was brought to the front of the voting line by officials.

Moms with cranky toddlers were not so lucky.

One way to break the ice while waiting on line was to ask: "Got power?"

For Elaine Long, of Polk Township, and her daughter, Megan Lorre, the reasons for voting for Barack Obama on Tuesday were clear.

"He got bin Laden. That's enough for me," said Long, 50.

Lorre, 20, standing beside her mother, said: "It was all about education for me. I want to be a teacher and I think that Obama is the best for teachers. He will support teachers the most. Oh, and I really, really like Obamacare."

Both Long and Lorre discussed why they voted for the incumbent after having just cast their vote at the Polk Township Fire Company Tuesday morning.

Long, who is originally from New Jersey and was a first responder during the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, said there were a few other reasons for her having voted for Obama.

He did end the war in Iraq, she said, and he does say he's committed to bring troops home from Afghanistan — but taking out Osama bin Laden was paramount in her decision.

She said that the 9/11 attacks were still very much at the forefront of her mind.

"I saw body parts that day — I saw things you never want to see in your entire life. A colleague of mine found the torso of an FBI agent. And Obama got him. Obama got bin Laden. There's nothing bigger than that," Long said.

Lorre, who is the niece of the late actor Peter Lorre, said that she voted for Obama because the terms of Obamacare directly help her.

She also said she believes that Obama would be less likely to cut the size of school staffs, which gives her confidence that she will be able to find a job more easily after she graduates from college.